I am writing. For all that it is still warm and sunny outside, the bedroom gets too warm in the evening if the curtains are left open on days like this. The outside world must be closed off, at least for today.
Sustaining this blog requires me to at least try to see familiar things in a new light now and again. There was no particular reason why the phone box in the centre of town caught my eye (on the way home from the cinema), but it did. Perhaps it was just looking very much like itself. These things, collectively, are a recognisable British icon — not quite technology, not quite architecture, a mixture of the two. This one is still functional as far as I know (that is, you can make telephone calls from it): it was being used as a library for a while but that is no longer the case.
Is it a flower? A back-scratcher for use in some gargantuan shower? The severed limb of a creature with a fetish for chain-link jewellry? (I think that’s it for my free-association work.)
It may seem surprising that these seats were not filled for a Merseyside derby, but this was Liverpool v Everton in the Women’s FA Cup, and also not being played in the city of Liverpool but in the stadium of St Helens rugby league team. There was a reasonable crowd packed into one side of the ground but the other three stands were mostly left empty. Someone’s still got to be ready to retrieve the balls, though. Or maybe this guy’s simply taking a break and hoping no one’s noticed.
This shot could be in sharper focus, but never mind, I like its repetitive character.
An abstract, though it does represent the fact that the two trains I caught today were punctual to the minute: a good start for 2026. Let’s see how long it takes before this perfect record is broken; I predict Sunday.
The Nightjar bar sits under the Picture House so is a logical place to go for a pre-movie drink, as was the case this Friday night. And a word out to the movie, too — Spinal Tap 2, which, pleasingly, was extremely funny and in no way diminishes the original, something definitely not always the case for many such sequels.
Whatever event was going on in Hebden Bridge Town Hall this afternoon it involved a few dozen identically-dressed elderly gentlemen, weighed down with various medals. By no means all of them had their mobility scooters, but quite a few of them did. Well, good luck to them. I use the shot because I am reminded of the cover of the Dead Kennedy’s Frankenchrist album — it is not to mock.
A day riddled with negativity in at least two ways, each related to totally different aspects of my life. I was glad when 20/8/25 was over, but it lasted until later than most of my days do at this time. Negativity doesn’t do much for creativity, so here’s a picture of a car park. But I suppose I like the redness and seeming randomness of the pillars, and it’s the second-latest shot of 2025 so far (beaten only by the turtle on Ascension Island in April).
Another day with very little to see, but as the sun was shining the garden once again obliges. These little red flowers are due to become green beans, and I believe that’s a junior version already curving itself attractively down towards the bottom of the picture. Vegetables and fruits of all kinds have done very well this year, even for a black-fingered (opposite of green-fingered) doofus like me.
Roadworks on Keighley Road continue to increase in both volume and density. Soon the entire street may disappear, collapsing in on itself to form a kind of roadwork singularity, or possibly a new form of matter, which will, while largely inert, occasionally flare up into frenzied and noisy activity at, like, 7 in the morning. Having thereby woken up any sleepers in the vicinity it will then return to its inactive state for the rest of the day.
Being 42 